


The Foolish Magistrate Censors the Internet

by StupidStory



Category: Sagwa - Fandom
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-02
Updated: 2020-02-02
Packaged: 2021-02-28 05:00:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,754
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22528261
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StupidStory/pseuds/StupidStory
Summary: A stone-age version of the internet comes to ancient China, and how it works is confusing even to me. The Magistrate decides to censor it after his feelings are hurt.An older story, hence the Cosmic Panda, Nyan Cat, and Justin Bieber references.





	The Foolish Magistrate Censors the Internet

**The Foolish Magistrate censors the internet**

The magistrate's wife was on the computer. No, it was not a real computer. C'mon, this was China back in the day. Don't lets be silly! The Magistrate was making the cats write stuff on scrolls, and then he would show it to his wife, who would pick options with her finger to simulate clicking on a mouse. Kinda hard to explain, but it should be easier as the story goes on.

The magistrate's wife was sitting at a desk with a box on it, the open end facing her. The magistrate would make the cats write stuff on scrolls that resemble web pages and general computer imagery, and then the magistrate would carry the scroll over top the box's opening. It was a new technology.

In the URL box, she picked up a bat's feather, dipped it in ink, and wrote the Facebook URL in the URL box. The magistrate took off the scroll and made the cats write down whatever the Facebook page looks like and put it in front of the box.

"Wow, this internet thing is really fun!" she said with glee. She wrote in YouTube. The cats drew YouTube's home page, Cosmic Panda layout and all. She wrote 'Justin Bieber Baby' into the search bar. She pointed to the first result. The cats all drew the Baby music video, one frame per sheet of paper (they wrote the comments of the video too, who were written by various fans and haters.) A bat flew in, told the cats the lyrics to 'Baby' and then the magistrate put the flip book in front of the box and flipped it. The cats all sang 'Baby' in sync to the flip book. It was just like the real thing. Magistrate's wife wanted to write a comment. She put "GAY GAY GAY!" in the comment box. _This internet thing could totally replace the mailman who delivers the Magistrate's scrolls._ The magistrate knew this as well. So he sent the bat colony all over to I guess to also transfer web page scrolls if anyone else wanted to use them. The cats would make copies of existing web pages for every would be internet user who wanted one. In fact, anything you can view on YouTube in real life can be viewed on their version of YouTube. Anything that you can do on a computer in real life can also be done on their stone age computer. Yes, that includes vidya games. How? I'll get to that eventually.

"I'm going to be on the internet all the time every day!" she vowed. She wrote '10 hour Nyan Cat' in the search box and pointed to a video of 10 hour Nyan Cat. She was treated to a flipbook of 10 hour Nyan Cat flying through space, with Sagwa singing 'nyanyanyanyan' for 10 hours. She was plum tuckered when all that was over.

"You've logged about 76 hours on the internet in a 24 hour period. Let Ba-do and whatever her sister's names are on sometime." The magistrate commanded. Both she and he had forgotten two of their daughters' names.

"That's the strangest thing. I can't remember two thirds of my daughters' names."

"Me neither," the magistrate admitted.

"If we ask them what their names are they'll give us the awkward stare and will feel unloved."

So they decided to call them 'person 1' and 'person 2' for the time being.

"Hey, you're person 1 and you're person 2," the magistrate pointed to Ba-Do's sisters. Since he was the magistrate, they did not dare question him. The three beautiful daughters were officially known as person 1, person 2, and Ba-Do.

The magistrate's wife pointed to the X button in the top right. The magistrate took off the page from the box and replaced it with a page that looked identical to a Windows desktop. She pointed to the start menu and the magistrate placed a small papyrus over the start that resembled a start menu, and she pointed to 'log off.' Now one of the daughters could get on.

Person 2 got on.

In a place far, far away, a handsome man who smelled like he was gonna fall over was on his papyrus stone age computer.

An old looking bat was in a room full of flip books, watching all the internet users all the time. A ghost cat came in with a bunch of papyrus sheets and drew on them the animation of the handsome man I mentioned earlier. This ghost was the Guay Meow. He was a messenger of sorts.

The handsome man's calligraphy cat drew a box that looked like an AIM chatbox.

At the same time person 2 was doing the same thing.

The old bat in the panopticon flip book room sent out one of the bat colony to quickly traverse between the man's house and the magistrate's pagoda. That bat was Fu-Fu. He flew over to the pagoda to read over person 2's shoulder. "She wrote 'Hi Chad. It's nice to talk to you again. How have things been?'"

Fu-Fu then flew over to Chad's place to relay the information. Each time a chatting partner finished saying something, Fu-Fu would travel to the other partner's place and tell them what they said to keep the chat going.

"Pretty good. Here's a picture of me." His calligraphy cat drew a perfect portrait of him. Actually two copies. Fu-Fu took one copy over to person 2's place.

"You look pretty sexy. Hey, did you know that I am the magistrate's daughter?"

"Pics or GTFO." Person 2 stood in front of the magistrate while Sagwa drew two copies of a portrait of the two.

"Uhh, my picture won't load. It's a bmp file and my connection is pretty slow right now."

"Sorry. Here, it should work now." It was a jpeg now.

"You look hot. The magistrate, eh, not so much. Yo daddy is so fat, his new nickname is 'the Great Wall of China.' Yo daddy is so fat, the portrait of him would take up over 9000 scrolls. Yo daddy is so fat, his yearbook photo is on page 16, 17, 18, 19, and 20. Yo daddy is so fat, he steps on the scale and it says 'to be continued." _I thought I had a crush on this guy until he insulted my father._

Unfortunately the magistrate was looking over her shoulder the whole time, to make sure there was no funny business.

Chad went on Facebook and proceeded to upload the ink portrait of person 2 in front of the magistrate. A bat went around, surveying all the people who were on Facebook at the time and did a quick count according to the flip books in the panopticon room. He then told Chad's calligraphy cat to make the same number of copies as the people who were thinking of pointing to the link that would lead to the ink portrait of the magistrate (the Guay meow can read minds.) Congratulations! The foolish magistrate had just become the world's first internet sensation, all thanks to his steady diet of deep fried dumplings with more trans-fats than calories.

The magistrate was not too happy about it.

"Well, you could show them by proper diet and exercise to get thinner. I worry about the health implications of being fat," magistrate's wife told him.

"I hate healthy food. I wish all healthy food would just die in a fire!" the magistrate pouted.

"Come on now, that's just childish. With an attitude like that, I'm surprised you don't still live with your parents," she snapped.

"I will not go on a diet. Instead, I shall censor the internet because THIS IS CHINA, DAMMIT!" Everyone gasped. He made the calligraphy cats draw a big censor bar over the Facebook main page papyrus and with the words 'BLOCKED' on it.

"Nice going, fattie! Now how are we supposed to like stuff and friend people?" person 2 scolded.

With the foolish magistrate censoring more and more content sharing sites that could potentially have people post pictures of him in his fat body, the bat colony were all flying less and less, getting less exercise.

Dongwa decided to get on AO3. "Hey, AO3 is not blocked. That means I can post a story exactly like the one the author of this story is writing."

The magistrate's wife was on the computer... Dongwa started writing.

"Dude, stop right there. Do you want the magistrate to censor more sites?" Sagwa scolded. Too late. The magistrate made the cats replace AO3 with a censor bar and the word 'BLOCKED.'

With the ever increasing number of censored sites (including YouTube, which was blocked because he found NyanCat annoying as hell) the economy became more and more angry with people unable to find jobs on the newly developed stone age version of the internet. In fact, there were zero jobs anywhere now except for the magistrate being the magistrate and the cook being the cook. The guy who delivered the scrolls was now living in a ditch, smoking pot.

"Bored. Might as well watch TV," Ba-Do insisted. Person 1 and person 2 nodded in agreement. There was another box in the living room (corresponding to the television) and a bat delivered a flip book and flipped it in front of the box. It was a news report, and the bat was saying what the news reporter would be saying, in sync.

"Live on MSNBC. The Chinese economy, despite being the world's most populated country, is failing miserably. In fact, right now it is the world's worst economy because the magistrate was an idiot and decided to censor the internet. Good job, fatso." The magistrate came in.

"TURN THAT SHIT OFF!" he yelled. The daughters did as told, and the bat flew away, with the flip book in claw.

There was a knock at the pagoda door. It was Chad.

"Hi, Chad." Person 2 greeted.

"I came over here to apologize. I'm sorry I made fat jokes about your dad, the magistrate. Ba-Do turned the "television" back on and pointed to channel 15. A bat came in with a flip book resembling an episode of Sagwa the Chinese Siamese cat.

"Oh hey, I'm on TV!" Ba-Do cried.

"I am a computer technician. Well, as much of a technician as one could be considering how exceedingly simple of an invention these so-called computers are." Chad went on. "I think there may be a way to get around all these blocked websites and explore them to your heart's content." He got on the papyrus computer and pointed to a VPN download link. "If you download this, you'll be able to get on any blocked website you want." It took a while to install because the loading bar that the cats drew would update 1% more every few minutes. The cats drew something that made person 2's heart stop.

"Administrator privileges are required to finish installing."

"Well, I can't ask the magistrate to get on his account since he's the one who started this Great Firewall of China shit." Person 2 lamented.

"Back up, back up. Firewall? There may be hope after all." Chad cheered.

"Oh?"

"Since it's a _fire_ wall, fire is weak against water, right? Well, if we pour water on the computer, then it will put out the firewall, getting rid of any and all internet censorship."

Chad went over to the lake with a bucket in his hand, filled it, and poured it on the magistrate's computer. He then got on, and tried to get on Facebook. Success! The Facebook papyrus was put up front.

The magistrate came home.

"Oh hey, are you stalking your peeps on Facebook?" the magistrate teased. "Wait. Stalking peeps on Facebook... DAMMIT, YOU'RE NOT SUPPOSED TO BE ON FACEBOOK! I BLOCKED THAT!" The magistrate was mad now. "From here on, this will officially be the law of the land." The cats were writing down this new law on their scrolls, terrified looks on their faces. "All cats will be banned in China! If I find any cats out, I will take them and hide them somewhere that they'll never escape. If you can't live with a censored internet, then you shall live with NO internet at all!" The magistrate laughed an evil laugh while lightning struck for added effect.

With no cats to write down web pages, posts, and computer stuff, there was no internet, no computer usage, no television, no vidya games.

Person 2 took off the magistrate's wife's coat and put the meow family in the sleeves and put it on before the magistrate could catch up. Being as fat as he was, he could not jog very fast or very far.

"We have to go to my house." Chad whispered to person 2. Person 2 nodded. The magistrate was on their tail. Chad pulled a lever, and the magistrate fell into a trap door that suddenly opened up in the ground. Chad and person 2 then found themselves trapped in a net, high above the ground. The magistrate then stepped on a mine. He went all splodey. That scene was almost like Spy vs. Spy. Yackety Sax played during that scene. A piece of shrapnel hit the net, slicing it open, freeing them.

Person 2 and Chad made it to Chad's house with the cats still safe in person 2's sleeves. Chad put a 500 lb barbell in front of the door so it would not open. They went up to the attic.

"Wanna play me in Super Smash Bros. Brawl?" Chad offered.

"Okay." He put a papyrus disc into a small box that stood on its side and then a bat carrying a clip board flew in front of the bog box and the cats drew what happened according to the button presses on the Wii-motes, which were actually small cardboard boxes with buttons drawn on them. They did not have that fancy shmancy technology back then.

"Dude, turn the sound off. You don't wanna attract the Nazis, do you?" Person 2 was worried. Chad turned the sound off (the cats were making all the game sounds).

Person 2 got on the computer to see if anyone else's cats were in need of being rescued from her psychopathic father. If they could use the internet, the that meant that they had cats. There was very little activity on the internet. Finally someone on YouTube posted a channel comment saying their cats needed to be rescued. Person 2 was on her way. She grabbed the long sleeved robe, put it on, and ran as fast as she could to where the person lived who posted that comment. She grabbed all the cats and put them in the sleeves, when she accidentally bumped into the foolish magistrate.

"Where do you think you're going? Your cats are not going anywhere. Except in a place of eternal darkness!" The magistrate said darkly.

"Chad said he was sorry for calling you fat."

"Oh, speaking on his behalf? He can tell me in person. But I will not accept his apology. I love controlling what people can and can't view online. I have already started the kindling of re-burning the Great Firewall of China." person 2 looked and it was a small fire right now, but it would grow and grow into a Firewall. "And this time, the drought will ensure that no one can put out the fire."

Person 2 put together two wheels attached to a stone frame and an arrangement of propellers and wings, and tested it out. Sure enough, it could fly. _Looks like I might have to fly my way off this Buddha forsaken country and set flight for Canada._ She mis-steered and accidentally crashed into the pagoda. There was no damage except to the flying apparatus.

"NOOO!" The magistrate wailed. "A terrorist attack! This is just like what will happen on 9/11. There have to be anti-terror laws, but I did away with all the cats in the country minus the meow family. Now who will write my laws? Know what? Screw this cat Diary of Anne Frank thingie."

The magistrate forgot where he had stored the cats, so he got replacement cats that look exactly like the cats he stole, and named them the same, and gave them back to their respective owners, and Ba-Do stomped out the flickering flame with her boot, thus repealing internet censorship in China for good. Until 20XX.


End file.
